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I am certain that it is better to fight for something than to fight against something.

When I visited Occupy Wall Street for a couple of days, about three weeks ago now, I found a community of very organised activists. A community of academics, intellects, civil service workers, parents, children, unemployed, students, doctors, musicians, artists and travelers – the only person not at that meeting place, the only person not taking their seat at the “Table for the future”, were the bankers and the politicians, the CEO’s and the stock brokers; who we have now lumped, squashed and pushed into this coined expression of ‘the 1%’.

They never received an invitation and today I can’t help wondering, who are they really…

If this revolution ( I call it that, because it has all the traits of one), really is the story we want to tell, then maybe we already know it’s ending, its outcome…
About 2 months ago I was in a chilly room in Sao Paulo, Brazil, helping my girlfriend with some study work on the French Revolution. As I came to the end of a brief analytical description of that time and the massive process France went through and how the States people rose up against the establishment, I was left with the realisation that we are repeating their story. We are fighting a corporate dictatorship as they did. We are demanding greater rights. We are attempting to tear down their castles of gluttony, but to replace them with what? How does this story end?
This 99% we feel united behind will reshape society according to our values, become the drivers of society…surely? We will create the world we dream of until the next generation of 99%ers feel they have been born into a rigid structure that they didn’t agree to and then they too will march..

Well it doesn’t have to be that way. What happened to every human being on this earth having a role to play in our story. The young students and unemployed youth of our society often feel hostility towards those in power, they often see their freedoms restricted by others actions.

They see a world and societal structure that they are born into but not welcomed to participate within. They see old agreements that they are expected to fall into without ever agreeing to them. They now see a corporate stranglehold from the very top, that appears to threaten all of their future dreams and so it is no surprise that now they have woken and now they are angry…

But I beg you-let’s stop reinventing the wheel. Let’s stop letting history repeat itself- instead let us create a story. A story of such magnitude, of such hope and undeniable possibility that we co create a societal reconstruction and transformation that even goes beyond our wildest dreams- created with everyone’s participation.

It’s time to come to the table. To join the discussion. We need everyone.

We need the CEO’s, the politicians, the bankers and the stock-brokers. I strongly believe this and I know such a notion might make some of your stomachs turn, but these are human beings, fathers, mothers, brothers, teachers and intellects. If they are corrupt it is because of a corrupt system that made them that way. They were a healthy cell, dropped into a cancerous environment. It’s not about removing them; it’s about transforming the system.

There is no 1%. There is no 99%. Segregation and separation never achieved anything. Never. It’s time we came to the table. Us- the 100%.